RELEASE

I got a motherboard to support two Radeon HD 5770s Crossfired. A reasonable priced mid-range card with nice specs.

That is a solid $500 build. It even has a second PCIx, though a bit crippled, so you can slap in a second 6870 when they drop to 100 in a year or so. That little thing could give you 3-4 years of excellent use. There is no reason to live with integrated graphics, there are too many servicable cards in the 60-100 range.

I recently rebuilt around the 1000 build they show, but I'm only running a single 460 (and I didn't spend near 1000) and can put in a second in a couple years to extend the life of my video system.

Even running 2 clients of eve on my two monitors, same time, I was not lacking with a 4850. Why do people need two video cards, other than it makes video card manufactures rich?

Meh, I was hoping they'd push it off until spring so I could have time to save for a new desktop, then for the game. =P

Since I've got an AMD 64 w/AGP graphics slot I'll have to pretty much rebuild from scratch. Best I could scrap together for a decent rig on newegg was about $500.

That's kinda what I was hoping for as well, I wanted more time to build a new rig :/

That sixty to seventy dollars is out of my range. =P Rent just went up.

Anyways, said caviar black may have just bit the bullet. It just today started giving me disk errors and won't boot windows. Sigh. It's the newest thing in this machine. Meh.

Back when I was single I could just throw a new rig on the charge card, or splurge and not have any monies in backup for a month or two...but not with a Mrs. I wish I could get her into gaming. =P

Newegg premium members can do 12 month, no interest after a certain amount spent.

Thanks Nif. That's probably a bit too much like credit tho, even without interest.

I think I got my HD working tho, I was able to format the partition that the operating system was on and reinstall Windows 7. Pain but at least it seems to be working, running the 100+ windows updates now.

I have come to realize that justifying the monthly payments of a TOR (notice I'm not playing eve anymore) is harder than the one-time payment for compy upgrades...

$15 a month really isn't all that much, it's like 3 drinks at starbucks. Something you could do, what I do in fact, is keep an eye on new egg for the deals and shell shockers. You could save yourself a good 20% buy getting what is on sale that is suitable for use. Doing that you could easially get something usable for under $400. Tell yourself no more than $75 for any component, processor, mb, graphic, memory and HD. Then get a copy for win7 and you're done.

Example, new egg shell shocker right now is 8gb of desktop memory for $35, normally $47.

Back in beta again.

We must be on the same beta wave because I am too.

I'll start saving up. And we already stopped the starbucks to save money. =T $15 does add up...I quit EVE to justify an Android. =P

But yeah, i would like to play and I'll see where I can cut back. My wife loved watching/a little playing of Mass Effect 2 (she can't wait for Mass Effect 3) so I'm trying to pull the "It's bioware!" card.

I'm also trying to find a copy of KOTOR for Xbox, I never played that in the first place.

Funny enough I actually have KOTOR for the xbox lol

I got a motherboard to support two Radeon HD 5770s Crossfired. A reasonable priced mid-range card with nice specs.

Mandy's got these same cards in hers. They scale wonderfully in CrossfireX, no real OC'ing needed.

Also, if you have a Fry's Electronics in the area, they have sick mobo/CPU combos on a monthly basis. They ship nationwide, but some deals are only available in brick and mortar stores. I built two PCs for Mandy and I about a year and a half ago-ish. Original budget was about 700/ea, with recent upgrades mine's over 1k, hers is right around there. Some of the stuff we got is now outdated (mobo models are outdated before they reach the shelves) but...:

Mobo

CPU

RAM

Vid Card (2 in CrossfireX, flashed to reveal that early ones were 6970's with shaders turned off in bios..cured that shit cy

This is the difference, when we got the new vid cards, the ones we had were only $60 less than the newer model.

Ryna's Vid Card (2 in CrossfireX)

HDD

Case

Can still make Ryna's rig with a current model CPU and Mobo for under 6-700 if you catch a special on the cpu/mobo. We also salvaged old optical drives, didn't see the point in shelling out. Use current case if they're usable, another savings, RAM can be salvaged as well. Be cautious on the case, many of the 6900 series Radeon Vid cards are BIG...our cases are really roomy, but even then I had to go to right angle SATA cables to get it to work with where the HDDs are housed. It's worth going to a Fry's or such just to do a reality check on the sizes of everything, then order it all on Amazon or Newegg.

Just depends on how much you want to scale back, but we both can run SWG with max everything, photoshop, skype, and various other crap with barely a hiccup. I'm still futzing with the most recent crossfire drivers, were I to do it again I might shell out for a single, better card. Remember you'll need a 64 bit Windows for it to comprehend more than 4gb of RAM, that was an unexpected expense. 4GB would probably have cut it, but...

okay for everyone who fears they need to upgrade / get a new computer for ToR , relax an check out this website . It'll tell you whether your computer can run stufff or not .

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/CYRI/intro.aspx

Just watched the companion video, one of the first things I'm gonna do is get a Jawa companion, that'd be hilarious haha